Can we get a pulse?

Unrivaled in recent memory, this week’s media dustup over UFOs was at once reaffirming and portentous. Even as news consumers continue deserting analogue-age institutions in droves, once again it took the 165-year-old New York Times to stir the pot. And yet … it took the 165-year-old New York Times to stir the pot.

What the Times reported on Tuesday certainly wasn’t new. The story about how Hillary’s 2016 campaign vows to unseal classified UFO documents were set in motion by now-deceased billionaire Laurance Rockefeller goes back 20 years. And it’s been growing stale in the fringe-news bin for at least half that long. Amy Chozick’s Times recap was a mildly expanded and less acerbic rehash of last month’s Washington Post’s take on John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign director, and the way his longstanding exhortation to “open the books” on UFOs has influenced her thinking. Snarky and unimaginative, what the WaPo feature unintentionally conceded was how woefully unprepared its news desk is to cover this issue, and with public interest growing.

Unoriginal as it was, look what happened when The Times took a more even-handed approach. The lesser media gods used it as a permission slip to create their own UFO buzz. And the results were wildly disparate:

Whether the media chatter triggered by The New York Times’ reporting on Hillary Clinton’s curiosity about UFOs will inspire meaningful reporting or collapse into noise probably depends on (shivers) The New York Times /CREDIT: contemporaryseeker.com

Like, hey, there’s MSNBC Beltway insider Andrea Mitchell going live on Hillary spokesman Brian Fallon: “What do we not know about Hillary Clinton and her attitude towards UFOs?” And look over yonder – it’s Mitchell’s uninformed talking-head colleague Chris Hardball lobbing conspiracy-culture softballs to Scientific American senior editor Clara Moskowitz. Moskowitz tells audiences not to worry, there’s not a shred of evidence to support the UFO phenomenon. The obsequious Hardball not only lets her get away with it, he’s grateful for her expertise — “I like your clear thinking and logic.”

“If Clinton wants to make a play for voters with beliefs in unproven phenomena,” mewled that ESPN FiveThirtyEight thing, “there are larger constituencies than Roswell truthers.” (That’s a dig in case you’re just too dumb to get it.) Even GQ weighed in. I know, GQ, right? GQ described it as a harmless if not almost endearing idiosyncrasy: “This could easily be written off as a goofy bit of late-night banter, but a closer inspection reveals that Clinton has actually done her homework on the subject.”

National Geographic resorted to ad hoc scold Nadia Drake, the predictably defensive daughter of SETI guru Frank Drake. “It’s disappointing that influential people are helping fan the flames of conspiracy theories that refused to wilt beneath the weight of truth,” wrote Drake, steamed that anyone might have the audacity to question the radiotelescope’s monopoly — and dad’s legacy — on contacting ET. “… This is why it’s unhelpful and irresponsible for Clinton and Podesta to be teasing the public as they are.” CNN, whose Wolf Blitzer blew his chance to beat the New York Times while moderating the Democratic debate last month, shifted gears on its next pass and went with a cursory little summary of the Hillary-Podesta thing from Jeanne Moos.

But there were also a few surprises. Unlike so many of the usual suspects accusing the former First Lady of pandering to “the UFO vote,” whatever the hell that is, the conservative Weekly Standard had no quarrel with her curiosity: “Clinton’s interest in extraterrestrial activity does not seem to be politically motivated.” Even the Washington Times, a reliable Clinton-basher, held its fire on this one. “The press,” it wrote “… is now covering the Clinton/ET connection from a unique political angle, rather than as a sensational novelty designed to titillate the public and ramp up social media.”

Well, that verdict’s still out. Will the press stick with it? Probably not. Aside from the Rockefeller angle, the MSM has yet to demonstrate it knows where to go with this issue. Which means they’ll probably sit around and wait for another green-lighter from the New York Times. And that would suck because the Times hasn’t had the chops for enterprise reporting on UFOs since its revered science writer Walter Sullivan awarded five stars to the University of Colorado whitewash that dispersed the crowds in 1969.

Yet, here we are now, five months into an utterly mystifying presidential election cycle. Voter anger is mindless and nurtured by clichés. Nobody trusts establishment or authority figures or experts anymore; even facts are booed and jeered. And this week, into this dispirited milieu, America’s venerated news leader dragged a neglected mystery from the cellars of ridicule and — simply by playing it straight — watched the ripples splash into the mainstream. Within a news cycle or two. Maybe, when it comes to UFOs, a bitterly cynical electorate is fed up with the status quo on that end, too. The smart money should keep an eye on the traffic.

15 comments on “Can we get a pulse?”

“When a New York Times article about Hillary and the UFO phenomenon begins with “Conspiracy theorists…” we should know they are sticking to the historical ignorance, and turning it over to someone who has a smattering of training in sociology, but measly knowledge about the history of research into the subject. What a farce!”
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“Conspiracy theorist” and/or “Conspiracy theory” is the modern day version of “swamp gas” with regard to the UFO phenomenon. But the intent is still the same.

That article written by Nadia Drake is a complete joke from start to finish. Then to make it even worse, she actually attempts (very lamely) to discredit Gordon Cooper in the comments section when she’s confronted with the video where he clearly recounts his own UFO experiences.

Nadia Drake (or her father for that matter) wouldn’t even qualify to shine Gordon Cooper’s shoes were he still alive. Yet she doesn’t even hesitate to immediately stoop to an ad hominem attack on him the second she finds her materialist position threatened.

It is that strategy employed by the denialists which will eventually be their undoing.

Larry,
Actually, I was referring to “Why We Keep Dreaming of Little Green Men,” by George Johnson, in Sunday’s NYT.
But, hey, what’s the diff?
He lumps those of us who think the powers-that-be aren’t fessing-up about their knowledge of the UFO/ET phenomenon with almost every paranoid conspiracy theory going back to the French Revolution.
Never mind decades worth of corroborated research or evidence (which he has most likely not looked at), just put together an admixture of shallow psychological analysis, focus only on the Area 51 trope, throw in a few quotes from similar thinkers (sic), overlay with simplistic terms from sociology (probably from his old Sociology 101 textbook) and……done!
“Conspiracy theorists are not stupid people,” he eruditely informs us. That’s right. They could never read an article like his without tears of laughter streaming down their cheeks.

Kecksburg, Stevensville, Rendlesham, JAL1628 to name a few, are all incidents involving ‘unidentifieds’ where the military had some connection to events and three of them definitely involve radar. In all 4 cases it is demonstrable that the military knows more than it is saying. Any sane and curious person would have questions.

Air Defence Command suddenly ‘learns’, after more than a decade, that Hill AFB is releasing air traffic control radar data through FOIA requests (or possibly in relation to an incident in Puerto Rico) and slams the door shut to the public.

Factor in the research of Robert Hastings and you have an issue that is of serious public interest.

Not an LGM in sight; just unanswered questions and a very unhelpful MSM.

@Billy,
…Just as they were caught flat-footed by the ascendancy of Trump, and more importantly the reasons for the ascendancy of Trump, so too the MSM cannot come up with a single knowledgeable reporter or commentator dialed-in to the very real history and research done by serious UFO researchers for decades, and peoples’ interest in the subject.
Hey, man, I’m reveling in the schadenfreude of watching these poor fools attempt to make sense of a phenomenon they deliberately chose to marginalize decades ago. In their smugness and arrogance and fealty to being acolytes of the “church of the serious and savvy,” they insulted hundreds of thousands of citizens who had experiences that cannot be explained away by the disinformation published without investigation by the MSM.
When a New York Times article about Hillary and the UFO phenomenon begins with “Conspiracy theorists…” we should know they are sticking to the historical ignorance, and turning it over to someone who has a smattering of training in sociology, but measly knowledge about the history of research into the subject. What a farce!
It’s ironic that at the same time these fluff articles are beginning to appear, Robert Hastings’s documentary is just now available for all to see. How many of them have written about it?
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Another irony is that the MSM always points out that only 36% of surveyed Americans think we have been visited by ET’s.
Dudes…according to the latest Pew Research Center survey, that’s 30% MORE than the number of citizens who trust the corporate MSM to give them an accurate picture of national and world conditions.
Suck on that!

If my memory serves me correct Lazar’s credentials were called into question by reputable investigators who ascertained that he did not attend the science and technical university that he represented in his qualifications and background.

Isn’t that how every whistle blower is discredited? The government pulled his files don’t you think? The father of the H bomb did not want to talk about him, meaning he knew him and recommended him for his work. When he made a presentation, Lockheed, Boeing and Northrup Grumman were all in attendance.

Stan (Mr. UFO) Friedman investigated Lazar, as did others, and found evidence of outright lies in his story. He has been discredited by ‘true believers’ and skeptics alike. The final nail in the coffin was the discovery of the real element 115, which is -not- stable. He took a shot, and got his 15 minutes. Maybe that’s all he wanted. Real scientists still think that there may be stable elements beyond those already created in the laboratory. Who knows what properties they may have? Apparently, not Bob.
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I stand corrected! The NYT has a tendency to push my buttons.
My curiosity was piqued and I logged onto the first link from the confines of my bed
Love the first NYT reporter quotes from Amy Chozick:
1.”the discussion of the ‘possibility’ of extraterrestrial beings.”-What does Amy think that the NYT is the center of the universe and no other sentient beings are on their level?
2.”Asked if she (HC) believed in U.F.O.s” -Poor choice of wording
3.”63 percent of Americans do not believe in U.F.O.s, according to an Associated Press poll”-Duh Everyone believes in the phenomena of UFO/UAP until they have been conclusively identified as to their origin when an explanation (for the most part) has identified the event
I just love the way the topic is versed about “belief” in UFO(s).
Amy, the reporter, is another arrogant, elite (in her own mind) and condescending journalist who needs to consider stepping back and choose her verbiage a little more carefully. From reading this you can be rest assured that Amy fits in well with the expectations and demands of her position as set forth by her editors. The NYT is on the same level with the elitists at Time Magazine. We know where Time Magazine is headed!!

Geez- Too many links in highlighted blue font to peruse at this late hour. Not fair to release new blogs at 10:15 PM on Saturday evening. Have to go to bed and awaken refreshed to challenge my aged memory on the NY Times history regarding UFO(s) and Chris Matthews best known for the “tingle up his leg” …………………., etc.